On Tuesday, a video was uploaded to YouTube titled "Black man taken to jail for sitting in public area." In it, a female police officer escorts a black man—who is recording the incident with his cellphone—through St. Paul, Minnesota's skyway. As they walk together, the man calmly tries to explain that he was sitting quietly by himself, waiting to pick up his kids. He says he knows his rights and the officer laughs with condescension. He says the problem is that he's black and she laughs again.

They meet up with a male officer who looks the man in the eyes and tells him, bluntly, "You're going to go to jail." The man says he hasn't done anything wrong, and in a matter of seconds the officer asks him to put his hands behind his back. A few seconds later, the video goes black and we can hear the click-click-click of a taser as the man screams for help.

Although the video was uploaded earlier this week, the incident took place in January. The man, 28-year-old Chris Lollie, was charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest. His phone was confiscated for evidence. The charges were dismissed on July 31. His phone was returned months later.

Earlier this month an eerily similar situation was documented outside of Seattle's Westlake Mall during a pro-Palestine rally. This time, the black man being led away by security had been maced and was surrounded by several witnesses passionately professing his innocence, some of which even tried to physically prevent the security guards from detaining the man.

"You guys are supposed to protect us! Why are you doing this?" one of the bystanders pleads. Despite the witnesses' protestations, the man is cuffed and escorted into the mall.

And it happened in Boynton Beach, Florida, the site of this video uploaded last month, where a police officer yelled that he'd "put a round in your ass so quick" to an innocent man when he began recording a traffic stop. The officer was then lauded by his police chief, who blamed the backlash on those "attempting to use this video to stoke racial tension and fear."

It usually takes death for discourse surrounding racial profiling and police misconduct to gain traction nationally, and even then a narrative will form to shift the blame onto the victim. That's what took place with the choking death of Staten Island's Eric Garner after he was suspected of selling cigarettes, and the fatal shooting of Ferguson, Missouri, teenager Michael Brown. For a large portion of Americans, these tragedies are where the discussion starts and ends: Every once in a while, police will overstep their bounds and a black man will die by their hands.

These are increasingly frequent but ultimately rare incidents that many are aware of—even intentionally culturally insulted Americans, whose only portal into the world of police-minority tension comes through only their Facebook feeds and the national news. And even then, the accounts of those events are often first fitted by the police departments themselves.

With power comes the ability to control information. Without persistent public outcry, law enforcement can spin an an invisible injustice into visible justice. Only rarely, when a man is killed on camera or in a public street in broad daylight, is an official account publicly questioned.

The stories that end up grabbing the nation's attention only represent a bubbling-over of quotidian discrimination and injustice; a broader, more pernicious form of every tragedy that swiftly eliminates a victim's agency. It is so systemic, so ingrained in our culture that we don't even notice it happening.

The police procedure in the videos above is so routine that the officer leading Chris Lollie into custody simply laughs at his calm and his reasoned explanations. It's so commonplace that a horde of impassioned witnesses are muted so that security can cuff a black man that happened to be present during a protest.

It is so normal that this was the response of the man, Raymond Wilford, pepper sprayed in the video.

"I've been treated like that all my life, so it kinda brushes off," he told The Stranger. "I'm so used to it I don't know what's wrong and what's right half the time."

It seems miraculous that they even let him rinse the pepper spray out of his eyes.

These particular instances were rare in that they were recorded and uploaded to YouTube. In the case of Lollie, the police's confiscation of his cell phone delayed the process for months. Lollie still uploaded the video, but how many others in similar situations—so beaten down by the arduous, months-long process of getting his phone out of evidence—would have opted to keep quiet and try to put the situation behind them? How many similar situations have taken place—are taking place today, right now—where the victim isn't able to pull out his cell phone and start recording? How many other times have the police confiscated any documented evidence so it would never be seen again? How many times, in fear of persecution, might witnesses have been videotaping or listening in on unfair treatment but refused to present the evidence to the police because it is the police, themselves, violating the law?

It is a brave—and legal—act to peacefully stand up for your rights in the face of law enforcement and to have a camera rolling, especially when intimidated into putting it away. Chris Lollie represents .01% percent of black Americans. No, he's not part of the .01% of black Americans who have been abruptly picked up by police, or who have been randomly picked out of a crowd and arrested, or who have been brutally restrained in a manner that far outweighs whatever minor transgression they may have committed. That percentage of black Americans is much higher.

He is part of the .01% who is lucky enough—or unlucky enough—to have it all on video.

There are still another 99.99% who live on the other side of this inconvenience every day. Most of America may not see them, but they are not imaginary.